Trapped With You
by mo.texas55
Summary: Donnie and April get locked in a closet...Hmm.
1. Chapter 1

**Just a little Apritello moment, nothing too intense. (I ship these two so hard though. They are too adorable.) Enjoy and review!**

**Disclaimer: *sigh* No, they're not my characters.**

* * *

She was disgusted.

What kind of people would allow such a thing, and how could the New York City Board of Education happily permit it to infect the entire system like it was good for the under-aged brain? They were endangering the new generation, filling their heads with explosive, mind-melting gibberish and equations. Chemistry…It was revolting.

Infuriated, _that's_ what she was. There was no quicker way to turn a headache into a migraine than by being forced to delve into the ever-vexatious universe of stoichiometry. What were they thinking? And to make it a requirement? What if she didn't have any aspirations to be a nurse or a chemist or pharmacist or a—a…Donnie? No, an ingenious-beyond-reason, mutant turtle she would never be, and she doubted very much that there was anyone in the world ever ambitious enough to strive toward such a goal, let alone who was actually keen to the existence of those kinds of things to begin with…Well maybe besides the Pulverizer. However, to have an ingenious-beyond-reason mutant turtle as a best friend was some sort of bizarre blessing. She felt bad for her fellow Chemistry-hating peers. None of them had a purple-banded ninja that came fully stocked with a mental library even the greatest minds in the world could not measure up to. If only he wasn't a turtle…

Even still, she felt no shame in stomping across the lair with her laptop and Chemistry book tucked under her arm, head pounding with an ache born of simply reading the first two problems on her homework assignment sheet. She strutted straight up to the open doorway of Donnie's lab, hardly even recognizing the presence of Leo, Raph, and Mikey watching _Super Robo Mecha Force_ _Five_ in the pit or the high pitched whirring of a drill somewhere up the spiraling ramp.

The lab was riddled with computers, blinking things, tools, chemicals, beakers, and unfinished projects. Framed photographs of the family of mutants and April herself adorned the wall opposite where she stood, and Mutagen Man reared frozen in the furthermost corner, arms looming over his tank in an endless forever like a sad joke no one liked to talk about. There was no turtle in purple sloping over the homemade work bench with a blow torch. Neither was there one sitting in front of the monitor, three-fingered hands flying across the keys at a rate that always impressed her. Nor was there one lounging in the den with his brothers, jumping up with an adorable gap-toothed grin to chirp a high-pitched "Hey, April!" and ask her how her day had been, if she needed anything, and if she wanted to see what he'd stayed up until the early hours of the morning engineering the night before.

She pursed her lips as the pounding in her head sharpened.

"Where's Donnie?" she asked in the general direction of the cluster of boys.

Not one of them took their eyes off the television.

"He's upstairs," Leo said, probably only half-conscious of his response.

"Dude, I knew it would work someday," Mikey said, chin in his hands as he lay across the floor on his plastron, feet kicking rhythmically through the air. His comment predictably made no sense until he widened his eyes in mock mystification and quoted, "If you build it, they will come."

Raph slapped the back of his head and was the only one to glance in April's direction, though it was with green eyes brimming with disdain. "He's on construction duty...Like blowing up his lab didn't cause enough noise!" he shouted as the drilling that had stopped for hardly five seconds began again.

She just barely caught Raph's growl as he glared up toward the second level as though truly hoping Donnie could feel his eyes burning through the floor. Mikey made a comment she didn't hear, and Raph responded by swiping up the little turtle's neck in a one-armed coil. Leo finally blinked away from the TV and attempted to separate the two. April took this as a go-ahead to ascend the ramp.

Indeed her gangly hero appeared to be in the middle of some sort of production process on a small room she had never known existed. He was standing just inside the doorway, one hand propping up what appeared to be a shelf, as the other wielded the drill that was getting Raph so irked. His forehead was adorned with a crown of black leather-like material that had a small flashlight attached to one side. She guessed this was something he'd whipped up recently—probably in a simple matter of minutes after he'd discovered his need for a light in order to complete this project. His brown eyes were narrowed on the point on which the beam shone, and of course, just as in any other moment of concentration, he had his tongue poking out between his teeth.

April did not notice herself smile. It was such a natural image—despite the fact that her eyes were on a 5'8" turtle standing completely erect on two feet and expertly handling a power drill.

Donatello was always tinkering with _something_. It was like he had the worst case of the best addiction possible. At least it was something that kept him occupied and ultimately served a greater purpose for him, his family, April, her dad, Casey Jones, and basically every innocent citizen populating this city perforated with metallic villains, dark-hearted mutants, alien droids, and Rat Kings. Donnie had a serious problem. He simply could _not_ stop making the world a better place.

She strolled over to his construction site—in no rush to break his concentration—and noticed the rusted tool box propping the door open, the pile of wooden boards waiting in a neat stack against the wall just outside the doorway, and the tin can of nails sitting on a shelf he'd already attached to the wall inside.

As engulfed in his work as he always tended to be, she often underestimated his acute sense of hearing. He had been raised as a ninja after all, trained to broaden his senses and sharpen his awareness. Even beneath the whirring of the drill he must've heard her approaching. Nevertheless, when he snapped his head up and met her gaze it was with a jolt of surprise, as though he'd forgotten they coexisted in the same world.

In his rush to greet her, he neglected the presence of the tool in his hand, smacking it against the half-secured shelf as he lifted his hand to wave, and in his attempt to catch the wooden board, he knocked over the tin can and a waterfall of screws and nails splattered the floor by his feet. He automatically dove to try and catch them, inadvertently dropping the shelf he'd forgotten to hold onto just that quickly, and earned himself a whack on the head. It took only a second of embarrassed fumbling for him to abandon the salvaging of his work and hastily prop one hand on the bridge of his shell and lean against the one stable shelf at an attempt to coolly brush off his clumsiness.

April did her best not to smile, though she couldn't say how well it was working out. For a nimble turtle who'd been studying the art of ninjutsu nearly his entire life, he could be extraordinarily awkward and unbalanced at times—especially around her.

"H-Hey, April." He cleared his throat and tried again. "April…Hi."

She allowed herself a small grin, but it had less to do with a response to his greeting than it did to the blush of green-tinted pink in his cheeks. "Hey, Donnie. What are you working on now?"

He blinked. "Oh…This?" His palm slipped off of the edge of the shelf as he turned but he caught himself before falling completely forward and then ripped the light off of his head as though just remembering he was wearing it. He tossed it to the floor where it bounced into the corner of the room. At this point he reverted to his best defense and reoccupied his hands, picking up the drill and a few screws to resume attaching the board to the wall.

He took a breath and then spoke normally as he began to work. "Mikey and Raph were playing ninja dodge ball yesterday and managed to knock a hole in the wall. Then we realized there was a whole chamber behind it so we took the entire wall down and cleared away the rubble last night. Sensei thought it would make a convenient weapons vault, so I've been working on converting it into a suitable storage area."

April poked her head through the doorway to judge the size of the room. It was quite narrow and didn't necessarily go too far back. It might've been deep enough to accommodate Donnie's long legs if he was sitting with his back against the doorway, but that was about it. It was small—but considering its intended purpose, it looked like it would do an adequate job.

"Cool."

Donnie's eyes followed her. She could feel his brown irises tenderly observing her movements, no longer focused on his original task. At least, not until he realized he was staring, and she knew this because he jerked his head around and ducked under the board he had readjusted against the wall. She glanced at his hands as he began shifting things around, but it seemed he was no longer on a productive train of thought, as he was mainly sliding the tin can back and forth across the shelf already in place and picking up the drill only to set it back down again. She had broken his concentration.

She again tried not to smile; although she wasn't sure why the moment seemed to call for it. Instead, she thought she might as well help him regain his focus. "Mind if I help?" she asked innocently. Who cared about Chemistry homework anyway?

He glanced at her and a wide smile traveled across his cheeks. "Sure. Can you hand me that toolbox?" he said before actually turning his attention on re-leveling the board above his head.

She set down her textbook and laptop on the shelf next to the tin can and proceeded to pick up the rusty box of the assortment of tools she'd never known half the names of before taking up the job as Donnie's part-time assistant.

"Just be careful not to let the door—"

He was interrupted by a heavy thud that was accented by a click and the blunt presence of darkness before she could even piece together what he'd been about to say. The moment she had lifted the tool box off the floor, the door had adhered itself to the wall, shutting them both in the tiny room.

She blinked at Donatello, or rather, in his direction. He had to have been standing hardly a foot away, yet she couldn't even make out his silhouette.

"Oops. Um…Is that bad?"

"Well…"

She heard the scuffle of him adjusting the shelf he'd been holding so that it wouldn't fall completely to the floor as he let go of it. She could feel his towering presence shift and inevitably bump into her as he tried to shuffle toward the door.

"Ah sorry…"

His hands found her shoulders with a gentle grip and he ushered her around until they had switched places. Then the air in front of her became suddenly empty as he knelt down on the floor, carapace brushing against her legs. A moment later, a bright light flickered and the tiny room found abstract shadows to befriend.

"Ah ha," he said, rising back to his feet and putting them chest to chest—or _plastron_ to chest. She watched his cheeks fill with color in the rounded lighting. He cleared his throat and turned very carefully toward the door, shining the light on it in all its solid glory.

"There's no handle!"

"Yes, well, technically there is, it's just on the other side—"

"Donnie! You put in a door with no handle?"

"It _has _a handle. It does, it's just not on _our_ side of the door. I was planning on installing one once I was finished with the shelving unit but—well I wasn't finished with the shelving unit. But it's alright," he said hastily at the look on her face. "Don't worry. This is simple. We just have to get someone to open the door from the outside that's all."

He reached for his belt, paused, then patted down all the parts of his shell that his hands could reach. "Uhh…Can I borrow your T-phone?"

"Where's yours?"

"It's in the lab," he said. "I wanted to recalibrate the—"

"Donnie!"

"We'll just use yours."

"I don't have mine."

At this he raised an eye ridge in one of those rare expressions he occasionally flashed that carried the smidgen of an attitude. "You don't _have_ it?"

"No."

"April, why don't you have your T-phone?"

"Why don't you have yours?"

He groaned in half exasperation. "I thought I told you to always have it on you. What if there's an emergency?"

They were stuck for a moment in an ironic pause before she broke herself out of it with narrowed eyes and pushed past him to squeeze toward the door. "Oh just move_,_ Donnie."

She began throwing her fists against the slate of steel. "Leo! Raph! Mikey! Helloooooo! Somebody open the door…You wanna help me out here, Don?"

He blinked at her then shuffled timidly closer with his plastron framing her back and joined her in pounding on the door over her head and calling out for his brothers.

* * *

Raphael was now sitting apart from his siblings with his arms folded across his chest, glaring flatly at the television and trying to ignore the happy way that his youngest brother swung his feet and tilted his head from side to side with an exaggerated smile painting his freckled cheeks like he was thoroughly enjoying the melody to a song none but him could hear. He was such an odd ball. It was like there were all of two separate worlds. On one lived Raph, Leo, Donnie, Splinter, April, Casey, and every other sane human being in existence, and on the other, living his life out in full contentment, was Michelangelo.

Raph unconsciously cocked his head to the side with his left ear angled toward the staircase. He had noticed only a moment ago the sweet silence of paused construction, but now he was quite sure that he was hearing something else—something that wasn't a drill.

"You guys hear that?" he said, loud enough to be heard over the television.

Leo glanced over his shoulder quizzically as Mikey uttered a, "Huh?"

"Mute that," Raph demanded.

Leo aimed the remote at the television and the room went quiet as the three brothers stiffened in listening postures, trying to pick up the noise—only it wasn't such a challenge now. There was a very blatant banging piercing the atmosphere and it was accompanied by the muffled voices of Donatello and April shouting with the obvious intention of being heard.

The three turtles looked at each other, each masked face glancing between the other two at first with a look of idle confusion as though silently questioning how to react. And then, simultaneously, their expressions changed to ones with fat, knowing grins taking over their cheeks. They didn't need to utter a word.

Raph re-crossed his arms, this time with an air of smugness and leaned even farther back, wiggling his shell comfortably into his beanbag chair and crossing his ankles. Leo unmuted the TV then set the remote on the floor next to him and leaned back on his palms as the three of them returned wordlessly to their show.

"What is that noise?"

They glanced up at Splinter who had emerged from the kitchen, guarding a cup of tea, the wispy streams of steam reaching up and curling around his long beard.

"April and Donnie got themselves locked in the new closet," Raph said with a smirk as Leo and Mikey snickered in silence.

Splinter's amber eyes glanced up toward the second floor, and for a long moment he simply stood on the step in a contemplative, unbothered silence. Then without uttering another word, he calmly took a sip of his tea and turned away to begin his meditation in the dojo.

* * *

She wasn't sure how long they stood there banging and shouting, but after an uncomfortable tingle blossomed in her fists and her voice began to crack, it was clear, no one was going to come to their aid. She dropped her fists with a huff and a groan, squeezing her eyes shut against the continuous pounding in her head. Being trapped with a giant turtle in a tiny closet wasn't helping her migraine.

"They can't possibly not hear us," she grumbled.

Donnie didn't respond. He too had given up on demanding assistance and when she glanced over her shoulder at him, with the beam of light illuminating his face from the bottom up, she could see his brown eyes calculating out a solution as his free hand tapped a knuckle against his chin.

He nodded to himself, then dropped his hand and smiled in full confidence. "I can get us out of here."

She raised an eyebrow and propped a hand on her hip. "Really?"

"Oh ye of little faith," he said strapping the headband back around his forehead. He reached over her shoulder, for a moment pressing his chest against hers so that she had to lean back to get out of his way. His hand dug around in the toolbox on the shelf behind her until he found what he was looking for—a flat tool she'd seen him use for plastering holes in the walls.

"This should do the trick," he said assuredly, finally straightening his spine.

She had to shift around out of his way again, pressing her shoulders against the back wall as he knelt before the door and examined the crevice where the door met the frame.

He smiled back at her over his shoulder and said, "Time me."

She rolled her eyes with a small smirk and watched him poke out his tongue as he proceeded to trick the door into opening.

* * *

Half an hour later, she was sitting on the floor with her knees drawn up to her chest, her elbow on her kneecap and her cheek leaning against the back of her hand as she whined flagrantly, digging the fingers of her other hand into her temple.

"I've almost got it," Donnie said in response.

"Donnie, you said that like twenty minutes ago."

"Yeah but this time I really almost…Darn it!" he said, chucking his tools angrily to the side. He had been riffling through his toolbox for a different one every five minutes.

He threw his shell against the door, sitting too with his knees drawn and his arms perched on top of them.

April released a small unintentional smile at his choice of exclamation. The way he spoke always amused her—when it wasn't factual gibberish that she couldn't understand anyway. Even that though sometimes she missed when she was sitting in school listening to her boring teachers drone on about subjects uninteresting even to them. At least Donnie had a passion for what he knew and was animated when he spoke.

He yanked the headband from his head again, making their one light source, besides the crack under the door, bounce around the room excitedly before hanging toward the floor and shadowing his face.

"I should've picked a different door," he mumbled.

"No kidding. Where'd you get it?"

"The junkyard. You wouldn't believe how many I had to choose from. You humans throw out the strangest things."

"_You humans_?" she scoffed. "Way to categorize things, Donnie. And I always bring you my random crap before I throw it away."

Even through the darkness she could see his cheeks burning bright. "That's—I didn't mean it in that sense. I was just…You _are_ technically a human—well mostly. I suppose you could be considered a unique anomaly among your species. I don't mean that in a bad way. You are quite special. Not that you're…or that I think…I mean taking into account your extraterrestrial DNA and—"

"Donnie." She shook her head, still grinning tiredly. "It's okay. I wasn't that offended."

"Oh," was all he responded with.

They sat in silence for a while, staring at each other through the shadows without really being able to tell what exactly the object of the other's gaze was.

Her migraine died down to a dull pulse for a moment as she contented herself with watching his knees sway and meet together, leaning toward one wall and then the other, while his hands fiddled with the strap of his headlight which was dangling between them, constantly shifting the shadows.

Though they both had their legs bent, the tips of April's boots still met Donnie's toes in the center of the floor. It was a good thing she wasn't claustrophobic—though she vaguely wondered if she suddenly might've been had she been locked in the closet with anyone else, which was a funny thought because Donatello was the longest of his brother's and took up more vertical space, though he was incredibly lean—borderline lanky if not for the muscles that had solidified in his limbs from years of training.

She blinked rapidly as she suddenly realized her eyes had been traveling around his silhouette, and switched her gaze to the spot of white hovering between their knees.

"So," she sighed. "What now?"

He too allowed himself a long exhale. "Well…I suppose I could try _breaking_ the door down, if we're that desperate, though it's made of a pretty heavy alloy and it wouldn't be an easy feat. Plus, there's not much room to do it very effectively."

"Okay…Any other options?" she said, glancing back up at him.

He shrugged. "We could just wait until they decide to let us out."

"What do you mean _decide_ to let us out? You don't think they were ignoring us do you?"

He pinched his lips together in one corner of his mouth. "April, we're in a sewer full of ninjas. They've developed pretty sharp senses over the past fifteen or so years. Either they're leaving us in here on purpose or they left the lair, which I doubt, but even if that were the case, Master Splinter would still be here and I know for a fact he could hear a fly buzzing around in Mikey's room from the dojo."

"So Splinter's in on it too huh?"

Donnie shrugged.

April blew her bangs out of her face. "Those bastards."

She caught a glimpse of his affectionate smile though he didn't fully look in her direction. "There's only so much to do around here to keep them entertained during the day," he explained.

"Yeah well…" She sighed again, eyes drifting to the bulky outline of her textbook and laptop sitting on the shelf over Donnie's shoulder.

Her stomach roiled, only intensifying the pain in her head again. She really didn't want to even think about Chemistry right now. But she supposed there was no better time than the present. She got up on her knees—which entailed practically straddling one of his legs—and reached over for the book and computer.

"Well, since we're not desperate yet, you might as well help me with my homework."

She sensed him tensing as she forced her way next to him and nestled down on the floor again between him and the shelf. There was just enough room to put them shoulder to shoulder with hardly any extra space to maneuver their elbows. She tucked her left leg under her right and leaned forward slightly so that her shoulder was in front of his and preoccupied herself with opening up her laptop and flipping through the pages in her textbook, trying not to notice yet again the tender way in which he watched her.


	2. Chapter 2

It had been about an hour and forty-five minutes now since they'd been crammed into the little room together, and it wasn't yet unpleasant for him, even as their body heat continued to creep up the temperature in the little space. Not that that was a bother to him. He was cold-blooded and the heat had always been rather pleasant and much more stimulating. Unlike humans—and even their sensei—he and his brothers, being reptiles, found warmer temperatures more alerting and energizing, allowing them to move more fluidly and at a quicker pace; whereas colder temperatures made them slightly sluggish. Training sessions had always been a nightmare during the winter.

It was the opposite for Master Splinter and April and Casey, warm-blooded organisms. They tended to be slower in the heat and more alert in the cold. He knew April, especially, greatly preferred to be near freezing rather than smoldering under a white-hot sun. He had always found that particularity about her amusing…Up until the moment she'd started to complain about it and had shed the outer layer of her clothing, leaving her shoulders bare in a white tank top. She had also discarded her boots and socks, wiggling her toes once they were free of restriction. She hadn't been wearing her normal leggings to begin with and so now was donning a simple ensemble of tank top and shorts.

He couldn't help the drift of his gaze as it continually coasted from the laptop sitting on his thighs to her body which was sitting so close to his own he could feel the slow steady pattern of her breathing. She was leaning back against the door with one hand pressed to the floor by her left hip. The other flipped the pages of the textbook sitting in her lap which was illuminated by the headlight he'd allowed her to borrow. She had again tucked her left leg beneath her right and had her right leg stretched out in front of her. It wasn't a very closed off position to be sitting in. There was…_a lot_ of skin—tender, clear, milky skin that looked like it might bruise if he pressed his thumb against it. But she donned no blemishes whatsoever and he was thoroughly amazed by this.

His throat had gone dry about half an hour ago, and it was hard to swallow anymore. He wished they had some water at least.

She sighed heavily, flipping another page with a furious grace only she could pull off. "I don't want to do this anymore," she groaned.

"I can do it for you," he offered distantly, hardly even aware of the words leaving his tongue.

She chuckled. "Thanks, but you practically are already. If you do anymore I'm not going to learn anything and I'll just fail the class and have to take it all over again."

"Fair point."

Despite this, she pursed her lips out of frustration and slammed the book closed. "I think it's time for a break," she said, setting the book back on the shelf.

She sat back again, her shoulder brushing against his and sending chills through his veins. He kept his face neutral, tried not to let on any difference in his pulse, though he could not for the life of him take his eyes off of her. He watched her eyes slide close and her head tilt as she rolled it slowly around her neck, revealing different parts of her flesh. She reached up and started digging her fingers into her muscles for the fifth time in the hour. Even without her muttered comment of a headache, he could see the pain in her face.

He didn't like seeing her in pain.

He cleared his throat as his fingers suddenly turned cold. "I could—give you a massage if you like."

She opened her eyes, blue irises gazing practically in horror at the far corner of the room. He could feel a heat rising in his cheeks and wished he hadn't said anything.

Her eyes softened. "That's sweet, Donnie…but I don't think—"

"It's a very effective remedy for headaches actually," he cut in, overwhelmed by the need to explain himself. "It's a pretty simple concept; all you have to do is find the source of the discomfort. Usually any pain in the body is due to a pinched nerve in the spinal nervous system which controls the—"

"Alright, Donnie."

His cheeks burned brighter.

"If it'll get you to stop speaking science, I'll allow it."

Her half-joking manner didn't even register. He hadn't anticipated her actually agreeing.

She stood up, stretched for a moment, then shuffled in front of him and lowered herself between his knees, placing her palms on his kneepads to support her weight as she sat. He sat up straight and hastily shelved the laptop, heart practically pounding in his ears as they adjusted themselves until they were comfortable again with her sitting between his extended legs with her back to him and her legs crossed, knees leaning against his own.

He swallowed dryly as she pulled her hair away from her neck and tied it in a messy bun on top of her head after removing the leather strap with the light and her favorite yellow headband. She set them to the side beneath the shelf, allowing herself to be swallowed up by shadows. This didn't really help to calm his pulse, as her skin was so white it was practically glowing.

He took a moment to control his breathing, which shouldn't have been difficult, seeing as he'd spent a lot of time practicing breathing techniques over the years. Of course, there were multiple times that he'd nearly passed out from it, and this was April O'Neil anyway. She caused his body to go through all kinds of stuttering malfunctions just by being a presence, and he hadn't yet figured out how to conceal or control that.

He finally breathed a silent breath and gingerly rested his hands on her shoulders, for a moment simply in awe at the scene. Never did he imagine he'd one day be locked in a tight-spaced closet with the girl that practically made his skin melt. And never _ever_ would he have guessed that she'd allow him to actually touch her this way. There was an intimacy about giving and getting massages that was inescapable—personal—it invited two separate persons into the same space and required a barrier to be brought down. He wouldn't have _dreamed_ to have that privilege with April, even as much as he had constantly wished for it.

After all this time, and especially with the introduction of Casey Jones, this brand of closeness hadn't even been a hope anymore. At one point, maybe, he could've pictured himself sitting in a dark room with April nestled in his arms, leaning comfortably against his plastron, completely content with allowing him to simply hold her. But after a while, probability began to speak its numbers and he had somehow let it snatch that hope away. Why _would_ he believe that he might ever have a chance with her? No one else ever had. Now, however, his hope suddenly seemed to light like a flame in his chest—reawakening. Maybe it wasn't so impossible.

He kept his left hand loosely propped on her shoulder and used his right to tenderly run his fingers along her spine and shoulders, pausing at intervals to assess the tension in her muscles and the curve of her spine. Finding the strained nerves was simple enough, after that it was just a matter of kneading out the kinks.

He used both hands now to press his fingers into her muscles as firmly as he dared, trying to concentrate more on the movement of her flesh beneath the surface rather than the impenetrable way her supple skin rolled under his thumbs. She was so warm, so soft. Her body had a malleable appearance but it was altogether strong under his hands, resolute—_real_. He had never felt anything so tangible in his life. Her skin was so smooth, slightly moist from the heat, and it accepted his touch just as easily as his electronics did. She was surprisingly easy to work on, and he was able to find a groove quickly.

A long, quiet breath escaped through her nose and he took that as a compliment.

He tried not to smile too big.

He worked in silence for a while—a comfortable silence—occasionally peeking toward her face to make sure he wasn't hurting her in any way. Her eyes had closed again, and they remained that way for a long time as she relaxed herself into his hands, bowing her head and leaning slightly forward to allow him full access to her back as well.

His heart stopped beating so frantically after a while of adjusting to her body and the way it felt in his hands, sitting between his legs. It became almost natural and he suddenly couldn't remember why it had been such a big deal a minute ago—though it was no less desired. It was simply comfortable now—the kind of comfortable that resides between two people that spend the majority of their time around each other, learning one another's strengths and weaknesses and coming to know exactly what to do and say to never strain that comfort. This was something he would now freely volunteer to do for her anytime she might need it. Taking care of her had always been an instinct and now it brought him ease. He liked it, and he really wished she would let him do little things like this for her more often.

"Where'd you learn how to do this?" she asked softly, her voice wrapping around the darkness to hug his ears.

Still working his fingers into her muscles, he said, "Actually, this is the first massage I've ever given, believe it or not."

"Shut up."

"I'm serious." He chuckled. "I learned how I learn everything else—research, and then trial and error."

He couldn't see her face, but he knew she was smiling. She had that kind of smile, one you could _feel_.

"So one day you just decided, 'Hey I want to know how to give a good massage' and sat in front of your computer for hours researching information on the best massages ever?"

A soft heat reached his cheeks. "Well, it's more than just massaging techniques. You also have to be familiar with the anatomy of the body—how nerves, muscles, and the spine all unite and work together. There's also a lot of information about the right kind of environment for massage, like lighting, music, temperature, scents. And then there are different branches of therapeutic treatments—essential oils, salt scrubs, hot stones, infrared wraps…It goes very into depth."

She made a noise as though amused by his weakness for facts and thoroughness. "What made you seek out all this information to begin with?"

He couldn't answer for a while. His lips had sealed themselves and she had successfully gotten his heart running at a good pace again.

Truthfully, none of it had ever interested him until he'd once heard her mention having a sappy longing for a spa day. It had been in the back of his mind that maybe one day he could give her just that, find some way to get rid of his siblings or otherwise recruit their help in turning the lair into her own personal spa, complete with mannies and peddies and everything. However, somewhere along the line he had awoken from his love-induced blindness and realized how much ridicule he'd get for even _mentioning_ such an idea to his brothers.

It wasn't ideal to have the kind of tenderness Donatello seemed to have with the kind of lifestyle he and his family led. Splinter had tried plenty of times to assure him that this softness was a "good" thing and had even thrown in the I-wish-your-brothers-had-more-of-what-you-have card, but the old rat wasn't fooling anybody. The teasing and laughter were just as demeaning after those one-on-one chats with his father as they were before the pep talk.

Right now, however, he definitely didn't regret his thoroughness.

"Nothing specifically," he answered in a small voice.

"Hm…You know what I've always wondered?"

"What?"

"How you always work with such precision on really delicate things."

He allowed himself a proud little grin. "It takes _a lot_ of practice and ten times more patience."

"Well, you're very good at what you do that's for sure…Actually, come to think of it, Donnie, is there anything you're_ not_ good at?"

He laughed. The question caught him off guard. He had never thought of himself as universally gifted at everything. He was a fast learner and loved retaining information, but there were plenty of things he simply lacked the talent for.

"Oh I can think of a number of things," he said.

"Like what?"

He breathed in through his nose. "Well, I'm pretty sure I can't sing. Um…I'm not a very gifted painter. I can't cook—"

"Wait a minute," she cut in. "First off, I've never heard you sing in my life. Have you ever tried?"

"Well…No."

She scoffed. "You can't check that off the list without giving it a shot, Donnie. How often do you paint?"

"Enough to know I'm no good at it."

"I feel like you're lying to me about that one. Is the paint-job on the Shellraiser not your handy work?"

He hesitated. "Not _entirely_."

She shook her head and moved on. "I'll let that one slide, but I know for a fact you aren't giving your cooking skills enough credit."

"_Mikey's_ the chef. I could never measure up to him and his ermm…creativity."

"What about that night you made spaghetti when Mikey was sick? Those were some pretty shell good meatballs."

He didn't even try to suppress his laughter. She was entirely too cute. "That's not exactly the right context for that word, April."

"Oh whatever, you know what I mean. You totally rocked those meatballs."

"Yeah, but I followed a recipe. I'm good at accurately executing orders; that doesn't make me a good cook."

"It _can. _Face it, D, there's probably nothing on earth you couldn't do if you really put your mind to it. I've _seen_ you do it."

He found the corners of his mouth wilting as he stared off into a particularly dark corner of the closet, still absently kneading her shoulders with strong hands. He let his gaze fall to her exposed neck and got lost for a moment in the peachy-white color of her skin.

"I'm not a good fighter," he mumbled.

At this she burst into laughter. "Donnie, are you kidding me?"

"Compared to my brothers I'm not," he clarified. "I'm no good at standing up to Raph."

"_No one's_ good at standing up to Raph."

"Leo and Mikey are."

She didn't respond.

"It's hard for me to fully grasp abstract concepts, like fighting without thinking, or…love." This word he mumbled and barely gave her a moment to really process it. "And I'm not cool like my brothers or…" He shuddered. "Casey. I'm no good at one-liners. I'm not funny. I'm not tough and rugged or gritty in any way. I'm just…a nerd."

Her shoulders sagged under his palms and she kept her eyes straight ahead, staring at the blackened wall. "Donnie, you don't need all that stuff to be cool. You're a ninja, for crying out loud! It doesn't matter how good a fighter you are 'compared to your brothers'; you still have that title. I bet you no one in the universe could wield a bo staff as well as you can—with the exception of Master Splinter of course. And that's just a stick, Don. You've built robots and computers and whole, fully-functioning vehicles, completely from scrap pieces and other people's trash. You've decoded alien technology, you're the _only_ person to ever figure out the formula for the retro-mutagen that turned my father back into a human, and you're a turtle. It really doesn't get any cooler than that, Donnie—maybe except that you can totally pull off the color purple."

Donnie chuckled softly; however, it didn't last long.

"Am I cooler than Casey?" he mumbled, not entirely on purpose.

Her entire body stilled, and she turned to face him with incredibly striking eyes.

"I didn't mean to say that," he mumbled again, dropping his gaze to his hands which were no longer touching her.

"But you did. Donnie..."

He pressed his lips together in silence and nervously shifted his eyes.

"Why is that so important to you?" she asked in a tone that didn't entirely hide the fact that she knew the answer already.

He didn't look at her. He shrugged. "I don't know."

"Yes you do, Donatello."

Hearing his full name in her voice made him shiver. It was such a rare thing, and so personal. Rarely anyone bothered with the full length of his name except for his sensei.

"I…" He exhaled heavily and glanced up into her eyes. "Are you really going to make me say it?"

"Yes."

"Why?"

"Because you never have, Donnie," she said. "Not directly. How can you ever expect to get what you want without asking for it first?"

"Because I _don't_ expect it," he said, his voice high on hints of astonished frustration. He shook his head. "I don't know if you've noticed, April, I'm a giant turtle."

"That never stopped you before," she countered.

"Yeah, not before Casey came along. I mean, I was aware I didn't really have a chance before, but now—it would just be stupid of me to think I might at all."

"Because you're a turtle?"

He swallowed past the knot in his throat and allowed his eyes to fall away from her again. They had never talked about this before. In fact, he couldn't recall ever having such an intimate conversation with her—a debate about why he wasn't good enough.

"Because I'm a turtle," he repeated quietly. "And...a geek, and a loser, and—"

She cupped a hand under his chin and quickly kissed his cheek, cutting off his words. "And there is _no one_ in this universe, or any other, like you, Donnie."

She lightly brushed her thumb across his skin then let her hand fall from his face. And they just stared at each other through the darkness, barely able to make out the warm color in each other's eyes. It wasn't entirely necessary though. He knew those blues eyes. He'd been stealing glances and blatantly staring into them for months. He knew what vulnerabilities they held, what strengths, what intensities. Once, he thought he'd known how to read them, but now he wasn't so sure.

He had tried to convince himself once that he was used to her little pecks on the cheek that she often graced him with—the little moments of affection. But the only way he could _be_ used to them was if they held a meaning smaller than themselves—if they were simply friendly gestures of gratitude. And for a moment, while he had enjoyed his little patches of gloating before a jealous Casey Jones, he had been able to convince himself, quite painfully, that those little kisses never meant what he hoped. And he had adjusted himself to this, learned how to cope with the idea that he would always be there for her, but only ever in the form she needed him to be—friend, confidant, brother…But anything more than that had never seemed possible. Except maybe until just now, when the tenderness of that little peck changed somehow and became something a little different.

And it was a something different that he reacted to instinctively. He simply returned that kiss on the cheek…which was something he had never had the gall to do before. But it wasn't entirely through awareness, and once he realized what he'd just done, he panicked at the way she looked at him—with full, widely surprised eyes.

Heart pumping in his throat, a sheet of embarrassed heat breaking out on his cheeks, he tried to turn away, look away, before he could humiliate himself further. But she stopped him, catching the tails of his mask between her fingers, and gently guided his face back around to meet hers. After that there was no possible way it couldn't have happened. She pressed her lips against his and it sent his heart into a flurry.

It was weird at first. He wasn't exactly practiced at the whole performance of kissing. He had researched it of course, with the frail hope that this moment would one day come. But no one really had excessive advice on kissing for the mutant turtle. The act of kissing itself wasn't even part of the reptilian instinct, though it was part of _his_. It did take a little effort. His mouth was much wider than hers and his "lips" weren't exactly the kind of lips to speak of, but he was Hamato Donatello—the fastest learner in the whole wide universe, as absorbent as a sponge. It didn't take him long to figure out the right technique, and then, strangely, it was completely natural, and it felt good, and it sent ripples of shivers throughout his shell.

He cradled her face in his palms—his hands big enough to cushion her entire head in fact, but they were no less gentle than human hands. In fact, April might argue that they were even gentler. He held her close, brushing a thumb across her cheek and then sliding his hand down to wrap an arm around her waist, playing with the soft cotton of her shirt.

Her lips were so soft against his own and she tasted like the same kind of honey he used to sweeten his tea. He wondered, only for a brief moment, if that was natural or something about her that had adapted to a life with mutant turtles and their Japanese rat master. But he was too entranced by the way her lips caressed his own to think about it too much.

Everything about her was small, but her hands were the smallest, yet they seemed such the perfect size for holding his face. And then her elegant fingers traveled down his neck and stroked the skin between collarbone and plastron, and rounded out over his shoulders, sending a cascade of goose bumps down his arms.

He broke away for a moment, only a moment, just long enough to meet her blue eyes with his brown and breathlessly exhale the words, "I love you."

She smiled—a smile he felt even more than any of her other smiles—and she nodded, brushing her fingers against his cheek and never taking her eyes from his. "I love you too, Donatello."

That was all he had ever wanted from her.

* * *

They pressed themselves against the door, leaning into each other and silently pushing one another out of the way to be the one with the full privilege of pressing his ear flat against the sheet of steel. Leo and Raph joined forces to shove a jumping Michelangelo out of the way, inclined with their shoulders to the door, facing one another and silently communicating what they were hearing.

"No fair! I wanna hear," Mikey exclaimed in a hushed whisper. "What're they doing?"

Splinter stood a little farther away with his hands behind his back though he too had one long ear directed toward the door, head tilted thoughtfully, completely silent until his ear twitched with the whisper of affectionate words being spoken. He was careful not to smile too broadly.

"Perhaps," he said quietly, grabbing his sons' attention, "they are not ready to come out yet."


End file.
